What I Worked On with Peggy Olson, Part 2

It's been slow-going rewatching all of Mad Men, but I'm back to it with season 2.  Still working on the cross stitch sampler and the end is in sight!

H is for Holy Cow, It Happened

 In what can only be a divine miracle, I finished a quilt for Holly's future bed.  We really can't be sure why looks so wrinkled, but it was made during the summer with three kids around, so I'm just in shock that it happened, from start to finish.  Also not sure why I didn't use more yellow fabric, since I made a quilt because I couldn't find anything that matched the yellow quilt I had in my head.  But it does have pineapple fabric.  That's the trump.

That little bunch of branches on the left is our almost-dead olive tree.  The nursery said there's a chance it will come back.  As I dreamed about an olive tree as a symbol of peace growing in our yard for years, it's going to be really depressing if it dies.

But anyway, the quilt is tied and done.  It looks a little different than I expected, but if I wanted all my [sewing-art-craft-cooking] projects to come out perfectly I wouldn't have had three kids.  I'll just replace any potential use of the adjective "perfect" with "festive" and enjoy it.

Let's Do This

One day you're swimming and eating fajitas, the next you're waking up early and eating lentil soup.  School's baaaacckk.

Everyone is enjoying their new levels of independence.  Rush has the confidence of a kid with a year of elementary school behind him, Tate has embraced Pre-K with the gusto of being ready to learn and play, and Holly was already an old pro at preschool on her very first day.   We all made it through the first week without any exhaustion induced meltdowns, so gold stars all around.  Cheers to the start of something new and all related possibilities.

Livin Large

School's going to be fine for learning, structure, and such, but we could still use a few more weeks of summer.

TEN!

Rush and Tate have been asking to go to the children's museum for -literally- years.  We often pass it on the way home from church so they have many opportunities to be reminded that it exists.  We finally went last week. 

On a scale of one to a million, with a million being a trip to Hawaii and one being drinking the potion of milk and cat food that Tate brewed this morning, I rank a visit to the children's museum right below whatever number cleaning the bathroom is.  It would rank over cleaning the bathroom, except cleaning is free and the children's museum costs a fortune.  If all children, even one-year-olds, are full price, shouldn't there be a discounted rate for adults?  I have to pay full price for my ticket to watch my children in a crowded space and stand around yawning?

The very best part of the day, the part that has already entered the Williams Family Vernacular, happened before we even entered the building.  I didn't check the hours, because why wouldn't it be open by 9 AM?  We arrived at nine, only to discover it opened at 10.  I was ranting about the time and trying to figure out what we would do for an hour when I hear a little Holly voice from her car seat say, "Ten.  Ten.  TEN!"  That last "TEN" needs to be in some crazy font like Wingdings to get across how funny it was.

If I was a child I would want to spend all my time in the mini-city, most kids do, and I would daydream about having my own elaborate play restaurant and vet's office.  Rush, the aspiring chef, was right at home in the restaurant.

Even though I do all the real grocery shopping, there is a strange allure to the mini-HEB.  Who wouldn't want to pick out cans of borracho beans little bouquets of flowers? My kids love the actual grocery store, so we spent a substantial amount of time fake shopping and checking people out.

There's really no excuse for living in Houston and not knowing Spanish.  Almost everything is labeled in both languages, so I should theoretically be able to start paying attention and pick up some vocabulary.  A Spanish speaking friend told us to get a book of Spanish verbs, learn a verb a day, then just start talking to people.  I spent a good portion of my time meditating on that while the kids shopped, studying the Spanish words for 'lemon' and 'drinkable yogurt'.  The meaning of "5 items or fewer, please" didn't sink in enough for me to realize it applied to us, or really any other kid in the place.  Tate emptied the contents of the bulk bins into his basket.  

Then we moved on to the rest of the place.  There's a certain aspect of science, the part that makes Big Hero 6 is just about my least favorite animated movie, that just doesn't click with me.  Give me volcanoes, space, physics, the Beaufort scale...but I just zoned out through most of the museum.  Flashbacks to lab days in high school science classes.

I'm glad it takes all kinds of people, because if it were up to me alone:

We wouldn't have air conditioning or electricity or whatever it is we get from thermal conductivity.  So thank you scientists of the world.  And please stop cloning animals; it is creepy.

Rush and Tate absolutely loved the place; it was probably one of the top days of their whole summer.  I really think Trent would love to go there with them, preferably on the night when admission is free. He would be so happy building little flying machines to send into wind tunnels and sending boats down the trenches.  Maybe I'll go with them and find a way to love it, too.

Definition of Insanity 2.

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, the second definition of insanity is doing something different for no apparent reason when doing something simple.  Also known as "reinventing the wheel".

In setting out to make Holly's nap mat for preschool -the fourth nap mat I've made- I knew that it would take two yards of fabric.  But two yards just looked like too much when it was on the cutting table in the fabric store.  So I purchased a yard and a half.  Surprise, I needed two yards for the mat and pillow.   

But that's fine, because I was going to make a pillowcase out of a different fabric, but did I buy fabric for the pillowcase?  Nope.  But that's fine too, because I have a supply of oddly shaped scraps perfect for quilting, but not pillowcase sized.  The most intense fuel to creativity in my world is not having the necessary supplies to complete the job. 

The alligator fabric is from a set of sheets that were obtained from a bed at my mom's house years ago thanks to her generosity and some begging and pleading on my part.  I don't know what's going to happen when the last scrap of alligators are gone.  There's almost nothing that isn't improved with the addition of alligators. 

The fabric selected, I sketched a plan.  Sketching a plan is a recent development for me.  

In this case, the placement of the straps in the plan did not create a nap mat that would roll together and stay together.  So it took an additional strap and additional snaps to make everything right.

There tend to be these little things that turn up and slow down the process.  Like using measuring tape that someone cut in half with pinking shears. 

Plus the cats always want to help.

In the end, it took about three hours to make a nap mat cover and pillowcase that could have been completed in thirty minutes or less if I had purchased the correct amount of material and webbing for the straps and either used the same process from the previous three times or followed a pattern.

But regarding the finished project, it's just perfect for Holly and could have never been produced if I had the sense to just buy the stuff I "needed".  All's well that ends well.

Collaboration

One day, this girl-

is going to move out of a crib and into a bed.  Not necessarily a day very soon, but one day.  I had an image of a bed in my head, Trent built it, I whitewashed it, and Trent installed it.  Teamwork.

How you gonna keep em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?  How you gonna keep hersnug in her crib, after she's seen her new bed?  She's staying in the crib for now- too soon to unleash Holly into the house while we're all sleeping.